I practiced with the herbs Nick brought, and managed to create more useful medicine. It wasn't as potent and pure as Nick's, but it was much better than my first attempts. 'It's time to implement my plan soon. Nick doesn't have long, before he will pass away' I thought. I still had other plans regarding the village. I lived there for well over a year. I learned a few interesting things myself. Since I worked at the Blacksmith's Workshop, I knew where the Purified Steel Ingots were sold. Every two months, some merchants from the Grasshill Village would come, and buy those ingots at a "reasonable" price. They were of course paying less, because Horseplain Village became like a sub village of Grasshill Village. I knew they would arrive in about a month, to collect those ingots. The funny thing would be, if they found none. I planned to use those ingots myself. Make as many daggers I could, and then leave the village. I would take any money and valuables too, I had no reason to leave wealth for others. Besides that, there was the Manual Rand was hiding somewhere. If not on himself, then in his house. If not there, some other place safe. Of course, I wouldn't spend too much time trying to find it. If I couldn't, then so be it. Nick visited me in the afternoon, and asked "Are you ready to start?". I nodded my head, and grabbed the herbs from him. I must admit, I was nervous. It wasn't just some medicine, but quite potent poison. Of course Nick was there to supervise me, and later point out any mistakes I did. I tried calming down a bit, then started. I started the fire inside the fireplace, then placed the pot above it. I tried my best to measure the amount of water. 'I think this is 200 milliliters' I thought. With that inside the pot, I threw in the Poison Grass. Again, I tried my best to weigh it as closely to 150 grams as I could. Now I had to wait for the water to start boiling. When that happened, I threw in the Cloud Mushroom. Just as the recipe specified, 50 grams of that herb per batch. Now I had to wait again. I checked the level of water constantly, in fear that I would overcook the herbs. When the content was reduced by half, I threw in some Haze Flower. My initial thought was that I added a bit too much, perhaps two or three grams more than I should. There was nothing I could do anymore, I could only close the lid, and seal it. This cooked for another five minutes, before I extinguished the fire. This was not the end though. The last step was to collect the poison. At that stage, I would find out if my poison was successful or not. I waited in silence, counting down the minutes. I touched the pot once in a while, to check whether it was still warm or not. When I finally deemed it ready, I prepared the bottle with a cork that had a hole big enough, to fit inside the tap. I pushed it inside, and wrapped some putty around the tap and the cork. I was quite nervous, when I opened the tap. The poison poured into the bottle, and didn't change into cloud. I sighed in relief. 'It worked, I did it' I thought. I was the one who made that hole inside the cork. Nick fortunately left the tools inside my house, therefore I could make a perfect size hole, that would fit the tap snugly. As for the putty, it was even simpler. I just had to mix some clay, with the Purified Coal dust. Nick told me the proportions as well. I didn't have to use too much Purified Coal, and thankfully it was very easy to steal that from the Workshop. The seal was alright, as the poison stayed liquified inside the bottle. When the poison stopped pouring into the bottle, I closed the valve, then with one swift movement took out the bottle while sealing it with putty. The Cloud Haze Poison was still in liquid state, therefore I did it correctly. Nick said from behind, "Well done! You managed to do this on your first try. Although you managed to produce the poison, it's quite weak. That's because your weighing was off, therefore the poison will be a bit less effective. You also threw in the Cloud Mushroom a bit too soon, but other than that, it was fine for your first try". I nodded my head, and started a fire underneath the pot. This was to burn all the dregs still inside. While the fire burned the dregs, I asked "Do you know how effective my poison will be?". Nick grabbed the bottle from me, and inspected it. He said, "I'd say it has around 50% potency. Not bad at all, and the poison is still very useful. It would take much longer to affect the people, especially stronger people. The cloud area will be larger too. You could kill someone with this, but it would work slowly". He handed me the bottle, and continued. "Don't worry, you will get better with time. You just have to work on your weighing skills. It comes with experience. As long as you practice with those containers, you should be fine". I nodded. I still had to clean the pot, after that one batch, and prepared to do another. While I was at it, Nick said "You should be alright on your own now. Finish up the herbs I brought to you, and you should have enough Cloud Haze Poison to exterminate this whole village. I will pop back in before that day". I nodded, and finished cleaning the pot.